I recently read a quote by Albert Einstein that literally knocked me off my rocker. And the quote was telling of this truth: Albert Einstein never heard the gospel. And I wonder if that was the reason he was so adamantly opposed to any sort of religiosity in the first place.
Here’s the quote:
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed” – Albert Einstein
And here’s the thing, Einstein: you are correct; but that’s exactly why the gospel is such freakin’ good news. If you knew the gospel, you would have known that all the eternal rewards that could ever be attained have already been purchased for us–not because of our good works, but because of Christ’s perfect performance on our behalf. Instead, he traded places with us: he took what we feared most–punishment–on the cross, so that we could inherit all the reward he gained. And in light of this, knowing that all reward (fellowship with God) is eternally, unconditionally secured for us, we are motivated “to do good” not out of obligation nor fear that we will be punished if we do not, but because we feel a deep sense of indebted love to the Savior who first loved us. He took our penalty of condemnation so we could stand in his position of favor and reward. Because of Christ, our position before God is not based on how “good” we are doing, but based on the perfect obedience and righteousness of Christ in our place. Therefore, we are freed from the burden of measuring up, freed from the burden of obligation, and freed from the fear of punishment. Because of the cross, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God that is in Christ–we don’t have to earn it, and we don’t have to fear not earning it. He is our reward, and may Christ receive the reward of his suffering on our behalf: a love from our hearts that is organic and not coerced.
Though, Einstein, I’ll give ya some credit–you’re tracking right, to some extent. You would definitely agree with the Apostle Paul when he says in 1 Corinthians that if Christ did not die in our place and was not raised from the dead, we would be–in fact–“the most pitied of all people.” However, his writing of this only functionally implies that life is built around Jesus being alive. And that makes all the difference. Jesus’ resurrection proves, confirms, and provides a solid reason for us to fully trust that His obedience on our behalf and death in our place was sufficient to be honored by God—that Christ reconciled us—and He did the all the work for us, “It is finished”. We no longer need to perform in order to avoid punishment or gain reward. Because everything we need has already been met in Christ. That’s why the gospel is such good, rich, weighty, convincing, compelling, and incredible news.
And it is this good news that changes the heart of people. Einstein, your quote is right in its assertion that the human heart will not be changed by obligations, threats, or selfish pursuits. If anything, fear of punishment or striving for reward in relation to a deity only further highlights our depravity–regardless of how “morally good” someone might be–because in the end, their being moral was just a means to acquiring what they really wanted; in this case, God is just a means to another end of selfishness, idolatry, and vanity. Religion says, “appease the deity in order to avoid punishment and acquire reward”, all the while God’s value is not known and love for self exponentially abounds.
In fact, Einstein’s quote about religion perfectly accords with the way the prostitutes (immoral), the Pharisees (legalistic), and many of us feel battered by it. However, there is a major dilemma when we understand Christianity as a works-based religion instead of good news: Perceiving religion solely on the scale of good and bad works—feeling like you measure up to God’s moral standard or not—leads to fear and despair on one end of the spectrum when we feel like we don’t “measure up”, but pride, self-righteousness, and selfish reward when we do feel like we “measure up”. (Can’t you see the problem though?—A works-based system of salvation is an inevitable dead end, because each extreme side of the spectrum produces anything but organic love for God—which is the redeeming goal of Christianity).
Nonetheless, in all its irony, the good news of the gospel is that we don’t measure up! In fact, this is such great news because we if it was in our capacity to measure up, or if we were forced into work for God’s salvation, the only option would be for us to struggle through our spiritual life, constantly oscillating and falling in between the two extremes of works-based results: despair and self-righteousness—both of which God intends to destroy in our life.
And that’s the problem. When you make Christianity works-based, it inevitably becomes a platform on which to exalt yourself or a burden that is too heavy to carry. Therefore, a works-based religion inevitably produces the self-righteous type or the immorally-indulgent type. Yet, when Christianity is rightly centered about the gospel, it produces people who can only boast in God—thereby organically producing selflessness, acceptance, and outreach.
See Einstein, the grace of the God is the only thing that frees us from these two extremes that make us such a “sorry lot”. Because Christ became our sin so that we could undeservedly bear his righteousness frees us from fear (i.e. through faith, we have his unconditional acceptance) and utterly prevents self-righteousness (i.e. we know that our works couldn’t ever save us, but only his grace). Therefore, our morality ultimately functions only to resound the anthem of God’s great grace in our life—and nothing more. Our morality isn’t threatened into action by fear, or prodded by the vain, subtle obsession for selfish reward. It becomes a response to Jesus. Which only makes it pure anyways.
In fact, if we “did good” only for reward, wouldn’t that be a wrong in and of itself? Not honoring Him as the ultimate ends, but using Him as a means to gaining a rather selfish end—our personal rewards (that we falsely assume are more valuable than the Ultimate in the universe)? What is at the bottom of our hearts anyways? Us. And that is slavery, indeed, Einstein—that is what makes us such a “sorry lot”. But the gospel is the only thing that breaks the deepest problem—the posture of our hearts. The gospel does something no other religious system in the world can do—organically change one’s heart to fall in love with the God who first loved us. The gospel changes sinful hearts that are inevitably entrenched in despair and self-righteousness by giving us a hope in God that is rooted in His work on our behalf. A rich experiencing of God’s grace frees us from the oppressing, insurmountable burden of striving to measure up—and organically fuels us to live truly godly lives: Truly loving God and truly loving people—God’s greatest intention for our lives, in which the entire law is summed (Mt. 22:37-40). For, “God is love”, “perfect love drives out all fear”, and “knowing God is eternal life” (1 Jn. 4, Jn. 17). “For he demonstrates his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, he died for us” (Rom 5:8).
The gospel is good news precisely because it is about what God has done for man. Religion says, “look at these great people of God”. The gospel says, “look at this great God of people”. The first mantra produces self-righteousness, pride, and condescension; the latter produces awe, humility, and graciousness. The first produces embittered, legalistic, and egocentric Pharisees as well as immoral, rebellious, and indulgent prostitutes and tax collectors. The latter produces people who follow God because they have fallen in love with the God who first loved them, and for no other reason–in fact, moral commands become a light burden and the outflow of a heart that is transfixed at the heart of God for them when they least deserved it. Religion says, “you must perform in order to be accepted by God”. The good news says, “you are accepted by God, now perform like His son”. And this command happens to produce a different type of moral behavior altogether—not one motivated by fear or selfish gain, but an organically fueled obedience that reflexively springs from depths of a redeemed heart—one with different loves, different desires, different perspectives, and different motives.
The grandeur of science would have heightened its appeal to you if you could see the world and all its intricacies through the lens of the gospel—God’s story for a cosmos moving towards its final destiny of being restored to its original design. Awe doesn’t exhaust with science, because awe isn’t ever exhausted from science’s Creator and Savior and Lord.
